Your logo is what is most memorable about your brand and your company. Your logo will go onto all your marketing materials, from printed pieces like business brochures to your letterhead and onto other media, like your Web site. Your logo will most likely be the only consistent factor in all of your communication with prospects and customers. For this reason, your logo needs to be designed so that people will remember it. If you’re designing or re-designing your logo, you should know the current trends for logo design. Culled from the best designers, here are the logo trends for 2009.

Arabesque
Arabic calligraphy is beautiful and elegant; just the thing to convey a feeling of grace and style to consumers. Many designers are pairing complex, intricate patterns with sans serif fonts.

  

Psychedelic Backgrounds
The use of layering in Photoshop gives way to a ’60s vibe that all is groovy in 2009.

 

Origami
Origami is a trend that Logo Orange believes will be short-lived because of the intricacies involved. Creating origami digitally takes the same painstaking precision and time needed as in real life.

 

Pictograms
Meaningful icons that truly represent a brand without a lot of deciphering on the part of the consumer became popular after web 2.0 logos faded away and are growing in popularity today.

  
Tactile
Sensual images that you feel like you can reach out and touch are big for 2009. Evoking a touchy feeling just by sight is a major challenge for many designers, which is perhaps why so many are trying this out now. But will it last?

 
Modernism
The modern logos today are a throwback to a simpler time, with lots of white space and simple, clean lines. Colors and shapes are strong, but kept to a minimum.

 

’80s Geometric Shapes
This trend bucks all conventional ideas that logos should not be multi-colored and complex. These types of logos may not fax well, but who faxes anymore anyway? Instead of using our high-tech 3D technology, these logos actually look like they were made in the ’80s, which is quite ironic.

  

Large Typographic Logos
Large type is in this year. The key with typographic logos is to create your own typography. That, and twisting a letter into something else that cleverly represents your brand, as does this Timewatch logo.

   

Takin’ It To the Streets
Street art, or handmade graphics, is making a comeback—what some consider a welcome relief from computer art. Although preferred by sports manufacturers and extreme sports enthusiasts, street art is moving into other realms as well.

 

Puzzles
Somewhat similar to the Arabesque look, puzzle logos are the anti-corporate look of today. It seems as though businesses are bucking tradition and trying to stand out by using a design no-no: using design elements just for the sake of using design elements.